Three Miami Herald opinions, three visions of America. Here’s what to know | Opinion

Three op-eds published this week in the Miami Herald tackle wildly different questions — national security, citizenship and taxes — but each argues something bigger about what America owes its people and its future. The pieces offer a snapshot of the ideological currents shaping South Florida’s high-stakes political conversation.

The three op-eds share a common thread: each invokes America’s 250th anniversary or its founding lessons to argue that vigilance — whether against foreign drones, judicial overreach or federal spending — is what keeps the republic worth celebrating.

Here are key takeaways:

• Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and ex-U.N. Ambassador Mark D. Wallace argue that Cuba’s acquisition of more than 300 military drones since 2023, including Iranian technology, is a slow-building Cuban Missile Crisis in disguise. But Floridians aren’t paying attention, they warn in a Miami Herald op-ed previewing a July 8 Shahed-136 drone exhibit at the Biltmore Hotel.
• The Shahed-136 drone has killed more Americans than any other Iranian weapon system, from the 2024 Tower 22 attack in Jordan to a recent strike in Kuwait — and the authors contend that the same weapon moving from the Strait of Hormuz to the Florida Straits should alarm American policymakers now, not later.
• Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski calls the U.S. Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling upholding birthright citizenship a victory for human dignity, especially in immigrant communities like Miami. He argues the decision is consistent with the plain language of the 14th Amendment and America’s democratic traditions.
• Abandoning birthright citizenship, Wenski contends, would have created “a vulnerable, exploitable and marginalized underclass” — and he frames the ruling as a moral win as the nation marks its 250th anniversary and reckons with what it owes immigrant families.
• Florida U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, who is running for election, takes a victory lap on the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, calling it the largest tax cut in U.S. history and boasting that Floridians saw the largest tax refunds of any state, with average refunds up nearly 11% and exceeding $3,700.
• Nearly 20 million Americans have claimed the “No Tax on Overtime” deduction and more than 4.6 million workers have benefited from “No Tax on Tips,” Moody writes, framing the law as a return to the founding principle that “the fruits of your labor belong first to you and your family — and not to Washington.”

This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists.